But Tyrrel, too, gave a start as he spoke, and looked hard at the careworn face of that unhappy man. "Then you're Mr. Trevennack!" he exclaimed, all aghast. "Mr. Trevennack of the Admiralty!" And the dignified stranger answered, bowing his head very low, "Yes, you've guessed me right. I'm Michael Trevennack." With scarcely a word of reply Walter Tyrrel turned and strode away from the spot. "I must go now," he muttered faintly, looking at his watch with some feigned surprise, as a feeble excuse. "I've an appointment at home." He hadn't the courage to stay. His heart misgave him. Once fairly round the corner he fled like a wounded creature, too deeply hurt even to cry. Eustace Le Neve, raising his hat, hastened after him, all mute wonder. For several hundred yards they walked on side by side across the open heathy moor. Then, as they passed the first wall, Tyrrel paused for a moment and spoke. "NOT a murderer!" he cried in his anguish; "oh, no, not quite as bad as a murderer, surely, Eustace; but still, a culpable homicide. Oh, God, how terrible." And even as he disappeared across the moor to eastward, Trevennack, far behind, seized his wife's arm spasmodically, and clutching it tight in his iron grip, murmured low in a voice of supreme conviction, "Do you see what that means, Lucy? I can read it all now. It was HE who rolled down that cursed stone. It was HE who killed our boy. And I can guess who he is. He must be Tyrrel of Penmorgan." Cleer didn't hear the words. She was below, gazing after them. CHAPTER IV. TYRREL'S REMORSE. The two young men walked back, without interchanging another word, to the gate of the manor-house. Tyrrel opened it with a swing. Then, once within his own grounds, and free from prying eyes, he sat down forthwith upon a little craggy cliff that overhung the carriage-drive, buried his face in his hands, and, to Le Neve's intense astonishment, cried long and silently. He let himself go with a rush; that's the Cornish nature. Eustace Le Neve sat by his side, not daring to speak, but in mute sympathy with his sorrow. For many minutes neither uttered a sound. At last Tyrrel looked up, and in an agony of remorse, turned round to his companion. "Of course you understand," he said. And Eustace answered reverently, "Yes, I think I understand. Having come so near doing the same thing myself, I sympathize with you." Tyrrel paused a moment again. His face was like marble. Then he added, in a tone of the profoundest anguish, "Till this minute, Eustace, I've never told anybody. And if it hadn't been forced out of me by that poor man's tortured and broken-hearted face, I wouldn't have told you now. But could I look at him to-day and not break down before him?" "How did it all happen?" Le Neve asked, leaning forward and clasping his friend's arm with a brotherly gesture. Tyrrel answered with a deep sigh, "Like this. I'll make a clean breast of it all at last. I've bottled it up too long. I'll tell you now, Eustace.